I've made my first novel, Ventus, available as a free download, as well as excerpts from two of the Virga books. I am looking forward to putting up a number of short stories in the near future.

Complete novel: Ventus

To celebrate the August, 2007 publication of Queen of Candesce, I decided to re-release my first novel as an eBook. You can download it from this page. Ventus was first published by Tor Books in 2000, and and you can still buy it; to everyone who would just like to sample my work, I hope you enjoy this version.

I've released this book under a Creative Commons license, which
means you can read it and distribute it freely, but not make derivative
works or sell it.

Book Excerpts: Sun of Suns and Pirate Sun

I've made large tracts of these two Virga books available. If you want to find out what the Virga universe is all about, you can check it out here:

Major Foresight Project: Crisis in Zefra

In spring 2005, the Directorate of Land Strategic Concepts of National Defense Canada (that is to say, the army) hired me to write a dramatized future military scenario. The book-length work, Crisis in Zefra, was set in a mythical African city-state, about 20 years in the future, and concerned a group of Canadian peacekeepers who are trying to ready the city for its first democratic vote while fighting an insurgency. The project ran to 27,000 words and was published by the army as a bound paperback book.

Here's what I'll be up to--a particularly fun set of panels this year!

Reading: Karl Schroeder

Format: Reading

14 Feb 2020, Friday 20:30 - 20:55

Your Generation Ship Has Landed! Now What?

14 Feb 2020, Friday 21:00 - 21:50

Our behemoth of a spaceship has been in transit since the days of our
many-times-great grandparents. We've finally reached an Earth-like planet and
are ready to go. What will our panel (of appointed/anointed/hereditary/elected?)
leaders suggest doing first? Have they forgotten something important? Watch the
panel map out our future and that of the human race on this, our new home. Then
suggest your own ideas.

100 Years From Now…

15 Feb 2020, Saturday 12:00 - 12:50

The world as we know it has changed dramatically in the last 100 years. How
about the next 100? What might everyday life be like a century from now?
What technological marvels will the near future bring? What social changes will
take place? How about natural and human-made disasters? Overall — where will we
be, and how will we get there? Is the Singularity coming? "Day
Million"? Or will our grandchildren herd sheep and shiver in the dark?

Futuristic Societies in Science Fiction

15 Feb 2020, Saturday 14:00 - 14:50

Creatures that are part human and part machine. Sentient alien species.
People living on ships and across time itself. The future is full of people. So
what does it mean to be a person in the future? How might futuristic societies
evolve based upon their surroundings and histories? How can we escape the
perils and pitfalls of contemporary social norms in order to create societies
that feel completely fresh and new?

Aug 05, 2019

Here's my schedule. I'm not going to be in Dublin very long, so I'm going to prioritize meeting people and socializing over sightseeing. You can expect to find me around the con most of the time from Thursday afternoon to Sunday.

Autographs: Thursday at 14:00

15 Aug 2019, Thursday 14:00 - 14:50, Level 4 Foyer (CCD)

Kaffeeklatsch: Karl Schroeder

16 Aug 2019, Friday 13:00 - 13:50, Level 3 Foyer (KK/LB) (CCD)

Reading: Karl Schroeder

16 Aug 2019, Friday 15:00 - 15:20, Liffey Room-3 (Readings) (CCD)

Space opera is for robots; soap opera is for people

Format: Panel

17 Aug 2019, Saturday 10:00 - 10:50, Liffey Hall-2 (CCD)

Will humans ever live long-term in space, or is it easier to let our ‘mind
children’ go to the stars, whether as uploaded minds or independent
intelligences? If humans (or AI) leave for space, would we miss them?

What I learned along the way

Format: Panel

17 Aug 2019, Saturday 15:00 - 15:50, Wicklow Room-3 (CCD)

Writing is a many wondrous thing filled with highs and lows, but those lows
can be really tough to navigate either after a great success or after a lack of
success. Rejection is something every writer has to face, but how do writers
keep writing in the face of failure? What lessons have they learned along the
way? Our panellists share the ups and downs of a writing life.

Jan 28, 2019

In advance of my keynote in Austria on April 2, I was asked about the future of journalism

I'll be in Vienna in early April, speaking at the European Digital Media Awards ceremony. To get a sense of the flavour of the upcoming talk, I was interviewed by journalist Chris Sutcliffe. You can read the interview here.

An excerpt:

“It’s funny: I’ve included augmented reality in my stories
for 20 years now. As it finally becomes a viable technology, I find
myself doubting it more and more. At first it seemed natural and
convenient that we should want to explode the images and interfaces
currently inside our screens out onto the physical world. But that may
be a terrible idea for a number of reasons...

Jan 24, 2019

I'll be attending this Boston convention again this year, Feb. 15-17, and reading from my new novel, Stealing Worlds

Boskone is held at the Boston Weston Waterfront, close to all the best action in downtown Boston. I'm flying in Thursday night so I'll be available to chat, sign and read from Friday afternoon onwards.

Here's my final schedule. What's on here matches closes my current obsessions, and a lot of these topics are front and center in Stealing Worlds. So expect me to be vocal, opinionated, and engaged!

The Most Alien Aliens

15 Feb 2019, Friday 16:00 - 16:50, Burroughs (Westin)

How can you design a really GOOD alien? How can writers/artists imbue their
creations with a genuine sense of otherness? What do our depictions of aliens
tell us about ourselves?

Near-Future SF

16 Feb 2019, Saturday 12:00 - 12:50, Harbor II (Westin)

1984 was published in 1949. 2001: A Space Odyssey was
published in 1968. Neither was predictive ... at least for the year they were
putatively about. Should science fiction set in the near future try to be
prophetic? Can it avoid becoming dated? Does it always have to be dystopic?
There’s a lot of it out there these days, but what makes a near-future story
successful?

Economics in SF/F Worlds

Format: Panel

16 Feb 2019, Saturday 14:00 - 14:50, Burroughs (Westin)

Whether you deal in coin, platinum, electronic credits, or chickens, all
societies rest upon an agreed-upon economic foundation. However, fantastic
fiction rarely features a reference to any body that establishes and monitors a
financial system. How important is it to see a working (or failing) economy in
an SF/F world? Can you realistically have a cashless society (Star Trek)
or a civilization run by orcs (LOTR)? What are the economic drivers that
keep these worlds turning? Fellowships that cross multiple borders to throw
away precious metal objects so rarely pay well. How do our heroes and
villains survive without visible incomes of any kind?

Kaffeeklatsch: Karl Schroeder

If Only It Were Real

16 Feb 2019, Saturday 20:00 - 20:50, Griffin (Westin)

What science fiction concept, other than space travel, would you most like
to see realized? Flying cars? Matter replicators? Time travel? Why? What would
be the impact on civilization of this wish fulfillment? Flying cars crashing
into buildings, replicators putting manufacturers out of business, time
travelers running wild, oh my!

The Limits of Automation

17 Feb 2019, Sunday 10:00 - 10:50, Burroughs (Westin)

When, how, why, what? Following up on last year's "The Future of
Work" ... How far can we reasonably project that automation of jobs will
advance in the real world in the next 10 years? Why? What limits to automation
are presently visible? What plausible limits have we not yet encountered? What
about the longer term? What jobs can we reasonably expect will be completely
automatable in years to come? We'll focus on technical aspects, not so much on
societal acceptance, and not at all on societal impact.

When Robots Take Over (Our Jobs)

17 Feb 2019, Sunday 11:00 - 11:50, Burroughs (Westin)

Twentieth-century history shows that automation can increase productivity
and stimulate new employment. More recent developments, however, haven't always
been so productive or stimulating (e.g., grocery store self-checkouts). Are we
nearing a point of no return — when technological advances chiefly function to
replace human labor? What happens to society once work gets scarce, and stays
that way? And what might the transition to that brave new (jobless) world
entail?

I'm a member of the Association of Professional Futurists with my own consultancy, and am also currently Chair of the Canadian node of the Millennium Project, a private/public foresight consultancy active in 50 nations. As well, I am an award-winning author with ten published novels translated into as many languages. I write, give talks, and conduct workshops on numerous topics related to the future, including:

I use Science Fiction to communicate the results of actual futures studies. Some of my recent research relates to how we'll govern ourselves in the future. I've worked with a few clients on this and published some results.

Here are two examples--and you can read the first for free:

The Canadian army commissioned me to write Crisis in Urlia, a fictionalized study of the future of military command-and-control. You can download a PDF of the book here:

Crisis in Urlia

For the "optimistic Science Fiction" anthology Hieroglyph, I wrote "Degrees of Freedom," set in Haida Gwaii. "Degrees of Freedom" is about an attempt to develop new governing systems by Canadian First Nations people.

I'm continuing to research this exciting area and would be happy to share my findings.

Year 2019

Year 2020

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Coming on June 18, 2019

"Science fiction at its best."

--Kim Stanley Robinson

A Young Adult Scifi Saga

"Lean and hugely engaging ... and highly recommended."

--Open Letters Monthly, an Arts and Literature Review

Sheer Fun: The Virga Series

(Sun of Suns and Queen of Candesce are combined in Cities of the Air)

“An adventure-filled tale of sword
fights and naval battles... the real fun of this coming-of-age tale includes a
pirate treasure hunt and grand scale naval invasions set in the cold, far
reaches of space. ” —Kirkus Reviews (listed in top 10 SF novels for 2006)

"With Queen of Candesce, [Schroeder] has achieved a clockwork balance of deftly paced adventure and humour, set against an intriguing and unique vision of humanity's far future.--The Globe and Mail

"[Pirate Sun] is fun in the same league as the best SF ever has had to offer, fully as exciting and full of cool science as work from the golden age of SF, but with characterization and plot layering equal to the scrutiny of critical appraisers."--SFRevu.com

"...A rollicking good read... fun, bookish, and full of insane air battles"--io9.com

"A grand flying-pirate-ship-chases-and-escapes-and-meetings-with-monsters adventure, and it ends not with a debate or a seminar but with a gigantic zero-gee battle around Candesce, a climactic unmasking and showdown, just desserts, and other satisfying stuff."--Locus